Edward D. Kelly

Edward Kelly as a young priest.

Edward Denis (also Dionysius^[1]) Kelly (December 30, 1860 – March 26, 1926) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, who served as the first auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1911, and then the third Bishop of Grand Rapids from 1919 until his death in 1926.

Biography[]

Edward Denis Kelly was born in Hartford, Michigan, to Thomas and Mary (née Hannon) Kelly. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 16, 1886 by Bishop Caspar Borgess. Kelly was then assigned to pastoral and seminary work in Michigan.

In 1891 Kelly became the minister at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Ann Arbor. There he found a parish that had outgrown their current church so he fund raised and built the current (2016) building between 1896 and 1899, using the Detroit architectural firm of Spier & Rohns for the purpose.^[2]

On December 9, 1910, Pope Pius X appointed him as the Archdiocese of Detroit's first auxiliary bishop, naming him the Titular Bishop of Cestrus. He received his episcopal consecration just over a month later, on January 26, from Archbishop James Cardinal Gibbons, with Bishops Henry Richter and Camillus Maes serving as co-consecrators. In January of 1919, Pope Benedict XV named Bishop Kelly as the third bishop of the Diocese of Grand Rapids; he was installed on the following May 20.^[3]

Bishop Kelly died in 1926, at the episcopal residence in Grand Rapids, from a hemorrhage or embolism. He was 65.^[4]

Education[]

• He attended, among other places, Assumption College in Canada, and St. Charles College in Maryland.
• He was also a major contributor to the founding of Theta Phi Alpha, a national women's sorority at the University of Michigan.

References[]